Bipolar check in #73

Hope the weather continues to be warm and that your headace is a temporary problem.

I’m older too, though younger by 8- 10 years or so. CBT was used for me too and I found it helpful. Rant away. This is a good place to let off steam.

Oy. I woke just before the alarm(7am), so shut it off off and rolled over for 5 more minutes and then it was after 10!

Feel very very lazy doing that but it was good sleep, I feel rested. But missed both Y classes. It was nice I got a sympathy card from my y fitness class. It was signed by everyone. That was so nice.

Yes I have two beloved kitties! They are 13 years old and they are ragdolls. I will have to upload some photos.

Thank you, Nammu! This ranting was very helpful to me because it sat my setback into a perspective I could understand with regard to myself. My mood rose several "degrees".

You needed that sleep! I am glad they sent you sympathy cards! You are in my thoughts. I can remember how it was the first year after my father had died. When good things happended to me, first I became sad because I could not share it with him. As time passed it became more of a "I wish my father could see this", still sad, but more like a sadness with the understanding of if he could see this or that he would have become happy on my behalf.

I'm doing mostly good today. I slept well last night. This presiodone is starting to kick my butt mental health wise though. Its mainly just causing me to be irritable. I have tonights dose and then tommorow mornings and then I'm done thankfully. And hopefully it was just a viral infection and nothing else that will come back. My blood work came back and my kidney function is high which isn't a suprise since it always is. My chlouride is high. I'm not totally sure what that means. I looked it up and it could be related to my kidneys, dehydration, or restricting due to an eating disorder.

I had therapy today and it went well. I was focused and we got stuff talked about. Mainly my health issues. She said "I know you have been sick, but how has the food stuff been going?" I told her I had started eating a lot of rabbit food and also I've been too lazy to eat and that eating is too much work and sometimes all I feel like eating is a string cheese. I told her I think its Vitamin D related stuff since I read people can have loss of appetite when they take supplements. But like I was kinda pretty sick so I didn't want to eat much. She wasn't that hard on me though today. I think I looked a bit smaller then the last time she saw me because my clothes weren't baggy today like they were last time.

Anyways besides therapy and the steroid fiasco not much has been going on. My niece has been over all day and we have had some wild weather and had to go into the bathroom twice because sirens went off. It wasn't a big deal though and everyones fine.

She didn't laugh that I like the song Unholy. Sometimes people think its funny if I like that stuff like that. Or at least they used to. Idk why though. I guess because they think of me as more reserved and not outgoing or some shyt.

Hi @*Beth*, thanks for checkin in on me! I'm always lurking -- just haven't had much to report lately.

Today I went to Louisville to see my psychiatrist in person to get a drug test, vitals, etc. All went well -- got my meds without a hitch too. (I usually run into some snag somewhere, but luckily not this month). I have some shopping to do in town and I'll be back later to talk more about my day, just wanted to reach out and say I'm thinking about you all -- especially you @Nammu !



Write more soon.

Hey Christina, I'm good, sorry been a bit behind here. I spent time with my friend yesterday. We played a tabletop RPG Star Wars board game and someof the digimon TCG (trading card game) it was a lot of fun. Next time we hang out we're playing dungeons and dragons

Today I spent time painting a miniature figure, miniatures a little solid grey plastic figures that come with some types of tabletop board games, you can paint them however you want. My friend taught me how to recently so I went ahead and painted one of the models that came with one of my games today and am happy with how it came out

It's a really relaxing hobby, got immersed in it for 2 hours tonight listening to music while I painted

Anyway, I'm doing well. I submitted a volunteer application to volunteer with this program that works with petsmart on Saturdays to feed and take care of the kittens there and help with the adoption process at their adoption events.

I'm so behind here I don't know where to even begin with catching up but I hope you all are doing well, and hugs to everyone, I should have more time to post during this week

I'm just about out of gabapentin so I called my pharmacy for a refill. They say there aren't any refills left. I asked them to send a refill request to my pdoc, hopefully she gets it in the next couple of days.

Ooo that is so cool blue bird. Great job on painting. I’d love to play D&D again. It was way back in the 80’s I got to play a few times. My library started up a game that meets twice a month but I haven’t had the courage to go.

The best thing to do when you are that tired is to just go to bed earlier.
so that is what I did.
woke up feeling better had to get up at 8am so I could take a shower.
I hit snooze twice and rushed to get up.
Taking a shower is a big deal to me.
It takes me about an hour to get ready to go.
I would rather have slept another hour but Ya gotta bath every week.
bizi

Thank you I hope you're able to go sometime

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rosi700 This is hard to digest for you, Beth. It is hard when people change. It is as if we lose them one part at a time and so it is the worries of how it all will end.

Yes, all of that is so true. Thank you, Rosi

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samicat So I'm new here and diagnosed as Bipolar II. Also have Atypical depression. ...

Hi again, Samicat. I love rollercoasters, too (real ones ).

I also meant to ask about your diagnosis. What is atypical depression and how is it different from bipolar depression? I'm so curious about that. Thanks.

What a beautiful post @Rosi700, and thank you for this clear explanation of CBT:

When CBT is successfully done one shall be able to recognise possible triggers, and then at the same time avoid an emotional experience or at least it will help to not let the episode become too strong.

CBT is not "simple" at all - not in my experience, anyway. I am working with it myself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samicat Yes I have two beloved kitties! They are 13 years old and they are ragdolls. I will have to upload some photos.

Ragdolls are so lovely. My daughter had one. Yes, pics! What are their names?

My cats are Solomon, Sidney (she's a lady), Jack, Sadie, and London.

Gosh @Blue_Bird, don't worry about catching up! I'm so glad you checked in. You did such a lovely job with the figurine. I can see how you truly relaxed and enjoyed the painting.


Ohhhh, I want to do that volunteer job, it sounds fabulous!

You surely needed that extra sleep @Nammu. How kind of the group to give you a sympathy card.


I watched the music video @Mountaindewed. I liked the visuals. All sorts of pretty, colorful stuff.

Empty day. Ran into two obstacles on the computer tonight. Discouraging.

@Blue_Bird:

Your miniature figure looks so exquisite! Great job!

Uggggh, this weather! So cold. Hard, bashing rain and hail, thunder, cold, cold. Mudslides, especially where the wildfires have burned away trees and foliage. People's houses sliding down a mountainside, an RV falling into a flooded slough, give me a freakin' break!

I found a load of Marcus Welby, M.D. videos on youtube. I'm so glad, I love that show. It was progressive for its time, they really worked mental health concepts into the story lines.

I had an excellent therapy session. I did the sand tray. Sand tray work is astoundingly liberating. M. is an exceptional therapist; she hasn't been out sick at all and the consistency has really shown me how skilled she is.

David is coming over to sit by my space heater and get warm. He has no heat in his house. He told me last night that he feels like he may be dying. Well, he's 76, refuses medical care, and lives in horrible hoarding conditions with no heat because the heater is broken and no one can get into the house to repair it.

I flatly refuse to let him go through another winter like this one has been. Yes, it's awful for him - and the stress on me is monumental. If he doesn't pull it together over this summer and have someone in to fix his central heat I am going to speak with his sister about everything. I honestly do not see him surviving another winter like this. I have no control over him whatsoever, but his sister holds the purse strings. Ugh, my stress level rises even thinking about David and his issues.

I'm getting my hair cut on Thursday. It's taking a lot of will power for me not to take my nice cutting shears and cut my hair myself, it's annoying me that much.

This morning at 8:10 someone drove by BLASTING a Skynyrd song from their car. I loved it!

Thanks Beth and Jane it was my first time painting one and I'm happy with how it turned out. Excited to do more of them.

Yes I really hope I get that volunteer position, I love kitties so much. It would be perfect for me. My therapist actually gave me the idea because she heard about the volunteer thing, it's called Kittens Angels. She gets to see my cats sometimes during our video appointments

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Beth I hope your haircut goes well. I actually hadn't had my hair cut in 3 years and was thinking about going to get it cut but I get anxious getting my haircut at salons. So I cut off like 7 inches last week. My hair is now a little above shoulder length. Honestly it's pretty uneven. So I do kind of regret it. But I also don't regret it because it feels so much lighter and better.

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I had therapy and pdoc today. Both helped. My therapist and I just chatted much of the session. I think he was trying t help me focus on something long enough to talk through it. He also reminded me I've been much worse which I needed to hear. I just know this is the worst I've been since I've been on clozaril which is 7 years. He also reminded me the med change will help.

Then my pdoc...oh my poor pdoc. I've been in panicky contact with her so many times in the last week or two. Today I signed on for my sesion and it said to take a seat in the waiting room. Somehow I'd been changed from video to in person and I was 2.5 hours away from in person. I don't know how that happened; I certainly did not ask to change to in person and I swear it was video when I did the pre-appointment stuff last week. But they worked it out and I got the video appointment.


She helped just by verifying she can see I'm feeling bad and because this happened last year in the same week next year we're going to be prepared so I don't have a month of waiting for my patches to arrive. I know it's weird but I need to hear that it's visible I feel bad because I start questioning myself. I think I start to think I've been feeling like this forever so why am I complaining?


My patches are in her office and will be mailed to me as soon as her secretary is in the office. I'm increasing to the higher dose starting tonight. That makes me nervous I could totally run out of patches but I have a pretty good supply still and I really need the higher dose. She also increased my bedtime klonopin because I accidentally did that last week and felt better. She says when the extra anxiety meds annoy me we'll know it's time to reduce them. That makes sense to me.


So I'm still not good but I've got a lot going on to help me. Which feels better than I have in a while.

Met with my PsychNP today over Zoom. He's feeling the crunch of being the only mental health practitioner in town and the stress of building a new location for his practice from the bottom up. He serves a town of about 20,000 alone. There's a hospital there, but if someone has a urgent psychiatric issue that needs to be addressed or even wants to see someone on the regular, they typically have to travel at least an hour, one way, to see them.

My PsychNP asked if I would be willing to make my weekly appointments bi-weekly to accommodate the extra demand. For now, I'm doing OK and have no objections, but "Wow." is all I have to say to that situation. Screwed up all around.